Abstract
BackgroundBiosecurity is one of the main factors affecting disease occurrence and antimicrobial use, and it is associated with performance in pig production. However, the importance of specific measures could vary depending on the (national) context. The aim of this study was to describe the biosecurity status in a cohort of Irish pig farms, to investigate which of those biosecurity aspects are more relevant by using the Biocheck.UGent™ scoring system, and to study the impact of such aspects on farm performance.ResultsExternal biosecurity score was high compared to most countries due to the characteristics of the Irish pig sector (i.e. purchasing only semen and breeding gilts on farm). The internal biosecurity score was lower and had greater variability among farms than other EU countries. Using multivariable linear regression, the biosecurity practices explained 8, 23, and 16% of variability in piglet mortality, finisher mortality, and average daily gain, respectively. Three clusters of farms were defined based on their biosecurity scores (0 to 100) using principal components and hierarchical clustering analysis. Scores for clusters 1, 2 and 3 were (mean ± SD) 38 ± 7.6, 61 ± 7.0 and 66 ± 9.8 for internal and 73 ± 5.1, 74 ± 5.3 and 86 ± 4.5 for external biosecurity. Cluster 3 had lower piglet mortality (P = 0.022) and higher average daily gain (P = 0.037) when compared to cluster 2.ConclusionsIrish farms follow European tendencies with internal biosecurity posing as the biggest liability. Our results suggest that practices related to the environment and region, feed, water and equipment supply, and the management of the different stages, need to be addressed in lower performing farms to improve productive performance. Further studies on the economic impact of these biosecurity practices including complementary data on herd health, gilt rearing, piglet management, vaccination and feeding strategies are needed.
Highlights
Biosecurity is one of the main factors affecting disease occurrence and antimicrobial use, and it is associated with performance in pig production
The Biocheck.UGentTM scoring system developed by Gent University [9] assesses biosecurity using a risk assessment approach and it has been successfully applied in several EU countries [3, 10, 11]
Postma et al [3] showed that biosecurity has moderate correlations to production performance in four European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden) and concluded that biosecurity practices vary with the country
Summary
Biosecurity is one of the main factors affecting disease occurrence and antimicrobial use, and it is associated with performance in pig production. The aim of this study was to describe the biosecurity status in a cohort of Irish pig farms, to investigate which of those biosecurity aspects are more relevant by using the Biocheck.UGentTM scoring system, and to study the impact of such aspects on farm performance. Postma et al [3] showed that biosecurity has moderate correlations to production performance in four European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden) and concluded that biosecurity practices vary with the country This indicates that characterization and contextualization of the pig sector in each national setting are important to understand the connection between biosecurity and performance [11]. We aimed to describe biosecurity status in Irish pig farms, to investigate which biosecurity aspects were more relevant by using the Biocheck.UGentTM scoring system, and to study the impact of such aspects on farm performance
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